The In Death Collection 06-10 (48 page)

“Oregon. It has a treated root ball. We’ll donate it to a park after the New Year.” He slipped an arm around her waist. “Them, I should say.”

“Them? You have more of these?”

“There’s one a bit bigger than this in the ballroom.”

“Bigger?” she managed.

“Another in Summerset’s quarters, and the one in our bedroom. I thought we’d trim that one tonight.”

“It’ll take days to trim one of these.”

“It only took the crew I hired four hours to do this one.” And he laughed. “Ours is more manageable.” He turned his head to brush his lips over her forehead. “I need to share this with you.”

“I don’t know how to do any of this.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

She looked back at the tree and couldn’t for the life of her determine why it made her nervous. “I’ve got work,” she began, and would have stepped away. But he shifted, laid his hands on her shoulders, and waited for her eyes to meet his.

“I don’t intend to interfere with your work, Eve, but we’re entitled to a life. Our life. I want an evening with my wife.”

Her brows came together. “You know I hate it when you say ‘my wife’ in that tone.”

“Why do you think I do it?” He laughed when she tried to shrug his hands away. “I’ve got you, Lieutenant, and I’m keeping you.” Knowing how quickly she could counter a move, he scooped her off her feet. “Get used to it,” he advised.

“You’re going to piss me off.”

“Good, then we’ll have sex first. It’s such an adventure to make love with you when you’re annoyed with me.”

“I don’t want to have sex.” She might have, she thought irritably, if he wasn’t so damn smug about it.

“Ah, a challenge and an adventure. It just gets better.”

“Put me down, you jackass, or I’ll have to hurt you.”

“And now threats. I’m definitely getting excited.”

She refused to laugh. And when he stepped into the bedroom, she was braced and ready for a bout. Later, she would think Roarke knew her thought process entirely too well.

He dropped her on the bed, then dived onto her before she could shift into offensive mode. With one hand he handcuffed her wrists and drew her hands over her head.

She shot him one hot, narrow-eyed look. “I won’t go down easy, pal.”

“God, I hope not.”

She scissored her legs, clamped them around his waist, and managed to buck until they rolled. Galahad, who’d been enjoying a nap on the pillow, gave one ferocious hiss and leaped off.

“Now you’ve done it.” Eve grunted as he rolled on top of her again. “You annoyed the cat.”

“Let him find his own woman,” Roarke muttered, then crushed his mouth to Eve’s.

He felt the pulses in her wrists give two quick, hard bumps, felt the head-to-toe shudder her body gave beneath his, but she didn’t yield, wasn’t ready to, he thought. There were times, he knew, Eve liked a hot, fast war.

By God, he was in the mood for one himself.

He bit her bottom lip, triumphing on the moan she couldn’t quite swallow. With his free hand he released her weapon harness, tugged it down her shoulder. Then, because he could, because heat was already pouring off her in waves, he hooked a hand in the opening of her skirt and ripped it down the center.

Now her body strained toward his, demanding, daring, even as she twisted under him in an attempt to evade or take control.

“Christ, I want you. It’s never enough.” His mouth clamped onto her breast.

No, never enough, was her last clear thought. She cried out, her strong body bowing up as those fierce pulls and tugs on her breast vibrated through her like wild music set to a furious beat.

Heat seemed to roar from her center out.

Freed, her hands dragged at his shirt, ripping at the silk until she found flesh with her fingers, with her mouth, with her teeth.

Rolling again, they yanked at clothes, tormented skin with greedy nips and bruising strokes. When she reached for him, closed her fist around him, he was iron hard and smooth as satin.

“Now, now, now.” She arched her hips, and came violently the instant he drove into her.

He held there, buried deep, panting as he blinked his vision clear to look at her. The fire that blazed in the hearth across the room shot flashes of light and shadow over her face,
glinted into her hair, flickered in her eyes, which had gone dark and blind with what they brought to each other.

“It’s me who has you.” He drew back, thrust again. “Always.” He shifted, lifted her hips with his hands. “Go up again,” he demanded and began to destroy her with long, hard strokes.

She fisted her hands in the bedclothes as if to anchor herself. In the firelight she could see him over her, dark hair gleaming, eyes too blue to be real, muscles sleek, skin pale gold and dewed with sweat.

Need rose like a flood, and pleasure swamped her. Her vision blurred, turning him into a shadow, gilded at the edges. She heard herself choke out his name as her body shattered.

“And again.” He lowered himself, taking her mouth with his, linking his fingers with hers, pounding his body into hers. “Again,” he managed, as his blood rioted. “With me.”

And it was “Eve” he said, just “Eve,” when he emptied himself into her.

She lost track of time as she lay under him, firelight dancing on the ceiling. She wondered vaguely if it could be normal to need someone this much, to love to the point of pain.

Then he turned his head, his hair brushing her cheek, his lips brushing her throat. And she wondered why she should care.

“I hope you’re satisfied.” Her mutter wasn’t as snippy as she’d hoped it would be, and she caught herself stroking a hand down his back.

“Mmmm. I seem to be.” He nuzzled her throat again before lifting his head and looking down at her. “It seems to be mutual.”

“I let you win.”

“Oh, I know.”

The twinkle in his eyes had her snorting. “Get off me, you’re heavy.”

“Okay.” He obliged, then scooped her up again. “Let’s take a shower, then we can do the tree.”

“Just what is this obsession you have with trees?”

“I haven’t decorated one in years—not since Dublin when I lived with Summerset. I want to see if I can still do it.” He stepped into the shower with her, and she clamped a hand over his mouth, knowing his baffling preference for cold showers.

“Water on, at one hundred degrees.”

“Too hot,” he mumbled against her hand.

“Live with it.” And she sighed long and deep when the hot water began to pulse out from all directions. “Oh yeah, this is good.”

Fifteen minutes later she stepped out of the drying tube with her muscles warmed and limber, her mind clear and alert.

Roarke toweled off—another of his habits she couldn’t understand. Why waste time rubbing yourself with cotton when a quick spin in the drying tube took care of it? She was reaching for her robe when she noticed it wasn’t the one she’d left hanging there that morning.

“What’s this?” She took down the long flow of scarlet.

“Cashmere. You’ll like it.”

“You’ve bought me a million robes. I don’t see . . .” But her voice trailed off as she slipped it on. “Oh.” She hated it when she lost herself in something as shallow as textures. But this was soft as a cloud, warm as a hug. “It’s pretty nice.”

He grinned, belting a black robe in the same material. “Suits you. Come on, you can fill me in on the case while I tackle the lights.”

“Peabody and McNab are in. They’ll have their match lists by tomorrow.” She wandered back into the bedroom, and spotted the silver bucket with champagne; a silver tray with canapés was waiting. What the hell, she decided, and stuffed something glorious into her mouth as she poured two flutes. “Your covers for them passed screening.”

“Of course.” From a large box, Roarke took a long string of tiny lights.

“Don’t get cocky, we’ve got a long way to go. Nadine was in my office when I got to Central,” Eve added, and set Roarke’s champagne on the table by the bed. “She got a load of Peabody so I had to fill her in more than I wanted. Off the record.”

“Nadine is one of those rare reporters you can trust.” Roarke studied the tree, the lights, and decided to dive straight in. “She won’t leak sensitive data.”

“Yeah, I know. We got into that a bit.” Frowning, Eve circled the tree while Roarke worked. She had no idea if he knew what he was doing. “If Piper and Rudy hadn’t seen me, I’d have done the inside work myself.”

Roarke lifted an eyebrow as he secured the first string and took out another. “I might have some mild objection to my wife dating strange men.”

She went back to the tray, took another pretty canapé at random. “I wouldn’t have slept with any of them . . . unless the job called for it.” She grinned at him. “And I would have thought of you the whole time.”

“It wouldn’t have taken very long—since I’d have cut off his balls and handed them to you.”

He kept stringing lights as she choked on her wine. “Jesus, Roarke, I’m only kidding.”

“Mmm-hmm. Me, too, darling. Hand me another string of these.”

Not at all sure of him, Eve pulled out another string of lights. “How many of these are you going to use?”

“As many as it takes.”

“Yeah.” She blew out a breath. “What I meant—before—was I’ve done undercover before, Peabody’s green.”

“Peabody’s had good training. You should trust her. And yourself.”

“McNab’s still kicking about it.”

“He’s smitten with her.”

“He really— What?”

“He’s smitten with her.” Roarke stepped back, pursed his
lips. “Tree lights on,” he ordered, then nodded, satisfied as the tiny diamond points blinked on. “Yes, that’ll do it.”

“What do you mean, smitten? Like he’s got a case on her? McNab? No way.”

“He’s not sure he likes her, but he’s attracted.” Wanting to see his work from another angle, Roarke walked over, picked up his wine, and sipped as he studied. “Ornaments, next.”

“He irritates the hell out of her.”

“I believe you felt the same way about me initially.” He toasted his wife in the glow of tree and fire lights. “And look where we ended up.”

Eve stared at him for a full ten seconds, then sat heavily on the side of the bed. “Oh Christ, this is perfect. This is just perfect. I can’t have the two of them working together like this if there’s a thing there. Annoyance I can deal with; sexual shit, no way.”

“Sometimes you have to let your children go, darling.” He opened another box, chose an antique porcelain angel. “You put the first one on. It’ll be our little tradition.”

Eve stared at it. “If anything happens to her—”

“You won’t let anything happen to her.”

“No.” She let out a breath, and rose. “No, I won’t. I’m going to need your help.”

He reached out, stroked a fingertip over the shallow dent in her chin. “You have it.”

She turned, picked her branch, and hung the angel. “I love you. I guess that’s turning out to be our little tradition, too.”

“It’s my favorite.”

Late, very late, when the tree lights were off and the fire burned low, she lay awake. Was he out there, now? Would her ’link beep, announcing another body, another soul lost because she was too many steps behind?

Whom did he love now?

The snow started to spit out of the sky at dawn. No pretty postcard snow, but thin, mean needles that hissed nastily as they hit pavement. By the time Eve settled in her office at Cop Central, there was a slick layer of ugly gray over the city streets, sidewalks, and glides that would certainly keep the MTs and traffic cops busy.

Outside her window, two weather copters from rival channels dueled in a war to pass the bad news to viewers and report on the latest fender bender or pedestrian spill.

All they had to do, Eve thought bad-temperedly, was open their own fucking doors and see for themselves.

It was going to be a lousy day.

Keeping her back to the arrow-slit view of her window, she fed data into her computer with little hope that she’d get a decent probability match.

“Computer, probability program. Using known data, analyze and compute. List in order of probability which names most likely to be targeted by True Love killer.”

Working . . .

“Yeah, you do that,” she muttered. While her machine whined and clunked, she took copies of photos confiscated
from Personally Yours and, rising, fixed them to a board over her desk.

Marianna Hawley, Sarabeth Greenbalm, Donnie Ray Michael. Faces smiling hopefully. Putting their best side forward. The lonely, looking for love.

The desk clerk, the stripper, and the sax blower. Different lifestyles, different goals, different needs. What else did they have in common? What was she missing that linked them all to a killer?

What did he see when he looked at them that attracted and enraged? Ordinary people, living ordinary lives.

Probability percentages even for all subjects.

Eve glanced over at her machine and snarled. “The hell with that. There has to be something.”

Insufficient data for further analysis. Current pattern is random.

“How the hell am I supposed to protect two thousand people, for Christ’s sake?” She closed her eyes, reeled in her temper. “Computer, eliminate all subjects who live with a companion or family member. Recalibrate remaining.”

Working . . . Task complete.

“Okay.” Rubbing her fingers over her eyes, she nodded. All three victims had been white, she thought. “Eliminate all subjects not Caucasian. Recalibrate remaining.”

Working . . . Task complete.

“Number remaining?”

Six hundred twenty-four subjects remaining . . .

“Shit.” She turned back to study the photos. “Eliminate all subjects over the age of forty-five and under the age of twenty-one.”

Working . . . Task complete.

“Okay, all right.” She began to pace as she thought it through. Grabbing her hard-copy file, she pushed through paperwork. “First-timers,” she muttered. “They were all first-timers. Eliminate all subjects with repeated consults from Personally Yours. Recalibrate remaining.”

Working . . .

This time the machine bogged and rattled. Eve gave it an impatient smack with the heel of her hand.

“Piece of shit,” she muttered, and set her teeth as the machine whined again.

Task . . . complete.

“Don’t you start stuttering on me. Number remaining?”

Two hundred six names remaining.

“Better. Much better. Print amended list.”

While her machine chewed and spit out data, Eve turned to her ’link and contacted EDD. “Feeney, I’ve got just over two hundred names. I need them checked out. Can you run them? See how many have left the city, how many got themselves matched or married, died in their sleep, are on vacation at Planet Disney?”

“Shoot them over.”

“Thanks.” She glanced up as she heard a stream of whistles and catcalls from the detective’s bull pen. “It’s a priority,” she told him and logged off just as a flushed and flustered Peabody walked in.

“Jesus, you’d think those morons hadn’t seen me out of uniform before. Henderson offered to leave his wife and kids for a weekend with me in Barbados.”

But, from the gleam in her eye, Peabody didn’t appear to be too displeased by the reaction.

Eve frowned. Her aide’s face was painted and polished, her hair fluffed. Her legs were showcased in a short, snug skirt and stiletto-heeled boots, both the color of ripe raspberries.

“How the hell do you walk in that getup?” Eve wanted to know.

“I practiced.”

Eve inhaled deeply, then blew out air. “Sit down, let’s go over the plan.”

“Okay, but it takes me a couple of minutes to get down in this skirt.” Cautious, Peabody braced a hand on the edge of the desk and began to lower her butt.

“You going to do squats or sit the hell down?”

“Just a second.” She sucked in air, winced a little. “Little tight in the waist,” she managed as she eased down.

“You should have thought of your internal organs before you poured yourself into that thing. You’ve got an hour before you’re due at Personally Yours. I want you to—”

“What the hell are you doing in that?” McNab stopped at the doorway, his eyes bugged out as they skimmed along Peabody’s legs.

“My job,” she said with a sniff.

“You’re just asking to get hit on. Dallas, make her wear something else.”

“I’m not a fashion consultant, McNab. And if I were”—Eve took the time to study his baggy red and white striped trousers and butter-yellow turtleneck—“I might have something to say about your wardrobe choices.”

At Peabody’s snicker, Eve narrowed her eyes. “Now, children, you may be aware that we’re working multiple homicides at this time. If you can’t be friends, I’m afraid I’ll have to limit your playground time this afternoon.”

Peabody immediately squared her shoulders, and though she slid a sneering look toward McNab, she was wise enough to say nothing.

“Peabody, I want you to convince Piper to stick with you through the consult. McNab, you take Rudy. Once you have the match lists, you’ll browse through the retail areas. Make yourselves obvious.”

“Do we have a budget for purchases?” McNab wanted to know, and at Eve’s bland stare, he shrugged and dipped his hands into the wide pockets of his trousers. “It’d make more of an impression if we bought some things. Chatted up the clerks.”

“You’ve got two hundred credits apiece departmental funds. Anything over, it’s your worry. McNab, we know Donnie Ray used the salon to buy enhancements for his mother. Make sure you spend time there.”

“He could use a month,” Peabody said under her breath, then folded her lips innocently when Eve scowled at her.

“Peabody, Hawley used credits in the salon and in Desirable Woman, lingerie place on the floor above. Check it out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ll both need to contact as many names on your match lists as possible. Set up meets. I want this to start tonight. Arrangements are being made to use the Nova Club on Fifty-third. The earlier in the evening, the better to start. Try for the first meet at four—then book the rest an hour apart. Get in as many as you can. We don’t know if he hit last night. We may have gotten lucky. But he won’t wait.”

She glanced over at the photos again. “We’ll have cops inside. Feeney and I will be out on the street, in constant contact. You’ll both be wired. Neither of you are to leave with anyone. If you have to take a pee, you signal and one of the inside cops goes with you.”

“It isn’t his pattern to hit in a public place,” Peabody pointed out.

“I don’t take chances with my people. You follow the steps, no deviations, or you’re out. Get Feeney and me the match lists as soon as you have them. Any member of the staff at Personally Yours or in any of the outlets shows undo interest in you, you report. Questions?”

Eve lifted her eyebrows as both of them shook their heads. “Then get started.”

She didn’t grin when Peabody levered herself, with some difficulty, out of the chair. But she wanted to. McNab rolled his eyes and showed his teeth as she marched by him and out of the office.

“She’s green,” he said to Eve.

“She’s good,” Eve countered.

“Maybe, but I’m keeping my eye on her.”

“I can see that,” Eve muttered as he strode out.

She turned back to the photos. They haunted her, those three
faces. What had been done to them crawled inside her and refused to let go.

Too close, she reminded herself. Too focused on what and not enough on why.

She closed her eyes a moment, rubbed them as if to erase the images of her own memories.

Why these three? she asked herself again and moved closer to study the cheerfully smiling face of Marianna Hawley.

Office professional, she mused, trying out the same system that she’d used to select Mira’s scent. Reliable, old-fashioned, romantic. Pretty in a safe, comfortable sort of way. Close family ties. Interested in theater. A tidy woman who enjoyed pretty things around her.

Hooking her thumbs in her pocket, she turned her gaze to Sarabeth Greenbalm. The stripper. A loner who was careful with money and collected business cards. Reliable, too, in her chosen career. Lived sparely, horded her take-home pay and calculated her tips. No apparent hobbies, friends, or family connections.

And Donnie Ray, she mused, the boy who’d loved his mother and had blown sax. Lived like a pig and had a smile like an angel. Puffed a little Zoner but never missed a gig.

And suddenly she had it, staring at the three faces of victims who never met.

The theater.

“Oh yes! Computer, bring up Personally Yours, data on Hawley, Marianna; Greenbalm, Sarabeth; Michael, Donnie Ray. Tile on screen, highlight professions and hobbies/interests.”

Working . . . On screen, requested subjects. Hawley, Marianna, administrative assistant, Foster-Brinke. Hobbies and interests, theater. Member West Side Community Players. Other interests—

“Stop, continue next subject.”

Greenbalm, Sarabeth, dancer . . .

“Stop. And Donnie Ray, sax player.” She took a minute,
letting it process in her own mind. “Computer, run probability scan on killer selecting current subjects due to mutual connection or interest in theater and entertainment.”

Working. . . . With current data, probability index is ninety-three point two percent.

“Good, damn good.” And huffing out a breath, she answered her communicator’s beep. “Dallas.”

“Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. See the couple at 341 West Eighteen, unit 3. Possible assault attempt. Probability incident linked to current homicide investigations, ninety-eight point eight percent.”

Eve was already up and snagging her jacket. “On my way, Dallas, out.”

“It was just weird.” The woman was tiny, as delicate as the fairies that danced on the tiny white glass tree centered in the wide window of the old rehabbed loft. “Jacko gets too up about things.”

“I know what I know. That flake was wrong, Cissy.”

Jacko scowled as he tightened his arm around the woman’s shoulder. He’d have made four of her, Eve thought. He had to be six-three and two-fifty. An arena ball player’s build, a face tough as mountain rock. Scars dug in at the lantern jaw and over the right eyebrow.

She was pale as a moonbeam, he dark as midnight. His big hand swallowed hers.

The loft had been sectioned off into three main areas. Eve got a peek at the bedroom suite through the opening in wavy glass walls the color of peaches. The bed was enormous and unmade.

In the living area the long U-shaped sofa could have fit twenty people comfortably. Jacko took up space for three.

What she could see indicated easy money, feminine taste, and masculine comfort.

“Just tell me what happened.”

“We told the policeman last night.” Cissy smiled, but her
eyes were shadowed with obvious annoyance. “Jacko insisted on calling them. It was just a silly prank.”

“Hell it was. Look.” He leaned forward, his tight scalp curls bobbing a bit. “This guy comes to the door, dressed like Santa Claus, carrying this big box all wrapped and ribboned. Does the ho-ho, merry Christmas deal.”

Anticipation curled in Eve’s gut, but she spoke coolly. “Who opened the door?”

“I did.” Cissy fluttered her hands. “My daddy lives in Wisconsin. He usually sends me something fun for Christmas if I can’t get out for the holidays. I can’t take the time this year, so I thought he’d arranged for Santa to drop in. I still think—”

“That guy wasn’t from your daddy,” Jacko said dampeningly. “She goes to let him in. I’m in the kitchen. I hear her laughing, and I hear this guy’s voice—”

“Jacko’s much too jealous for his own good. It hurts our relationship.”

“Bullshit, Cissy. You can’t tell a guy’s making you until he’s got his hand up your skirt. Jesus.” Obviously disgusted, Jacko hissed out a breath. “He’s moving in on her when I walk out.”

“Moving in?” Eve repeated while Cissy pouted.

“Yeah, I could see it. He’s moving in, got this big smile, this gleam in his eyes.”

“Twinkle,” Cissy muttered. “Santa’s eyes are supposed to twinkle for Lord’s sake, Jacko.”